A personal New Year's Eve

In This Issue:
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* Today's daily dose: A personal New Year's Eve
* Motivational Me to Exercise: 4. Train for a reason
 

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Today's daily dose: 16th September 2010
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The eve of the 13th September is always an interesting day for me. It is my "New Year's Eve". I don't use the normal calendar as my annual starting point for goal setting, or those "New Year's Resolutions" everyone sets on January 1st and forget about on the 14th,  I use the date that is special to me - my birth date.

What I like to do is work out what has worked for me over the past 12 months and where I need to tighten up and do things differently. This is where I take a good and hard look at my list of achievements, and my goals and see if the 2 coincide in any way shape or form, and then I decide what it is I want to see on my goal achievement list on the eve of my birthday the following year.

How can I remember?

Well I never trust my memory that is why I use a journal. But not just any old journal technique. What I try and do every day is to write down the positives, all those things that I have managed to do. I make a note of when I send the Daily Dose - did I hit the mark or was the topic off somehow? Did I meet my personal goals for that day? Did I work on my long term goals and projects? What did I do? And yes I make a note of the blunders too. It's important to notice when you fail, so you don't repeat the mistakes.

Every day the book gets filled in.

And then I turn the book over and I write down all my current set of goals. There are the massive goals of course, but there are the little ones listed too. Finish the City to Surf, Climb Jacobs Ladder 5 times up and down, Complete my training program and my book (writing not reading). These individual "want" lists are more specific in my opinion than goals and they can be as small as "I want to get .... birthday present today". If that sort of thing has been burrowing through your mind then it is important to deal with it so you can focus on what you say is really important to you, ie., your BIG goals, whatever that means to you.

Now I know that not everyone reading this will have had a birthday recently and you may already be well into your own personal new year. But it is a good idea (IMO) to learn to reflect and to plan for the next phases and you should do so on a semi regular basis. I not only use my annual cycle of reflection and planning, but a daily, weekly and monthly schedule (with a massive kick up the backside after 3, 6 and 9 months) too - the daily ones are easier to work out of course when you know what your longer term goals are. And we have spoken about those kinds of things many times. Why should I need a kick up the backside? Well as you know it is easy to get faked into thinking busy is the same as productive - it's not. So I too pull myself into line and work out what I need to do to push my goal achievement just that little bit harder / faster.

Now this technique may not work for you, but if the way you've been working hasn't either - can you please give it a go and see if you can't kickstart your own personal new year's revolutions.

With many thoughts
Elle

P.S.: If you've enjoyed this newsletter and have found it to be valuable, would do me the favour and forward it to your friends, family and associates, it would be very much appreciated. And if they would like to subscribe, they just need to visit http://www.motivateme.info for easy and convenient sign-up.

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Motivational Me to Exercise: 4. Train for a reason
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As we mentioned in the last edition of Motivate Me to Exercise - on Training Where Others Train. The next best motivational tip I can give you for exercising on a consistent basis is to train for a reason.

Training for a reason means you get up and you get going no matter how you are feeling, what the weather is doing or what else you have to do today. Training is the one and only thing that should sit in the No1 spot on your to-do list when you are training for a reason.

What do I mean?

Well can you imagine getting up one morning and deciding you are going to run a marathon that day. Now unless you are Eddie Izzard who did not only that but another 40 odd marathon's in 40 odd-days you will need to train and you will need to build up your strength, stamina and you will need to build up both speed and distance. And the same is true for most kinds of sports. Rarely are we blessed with an innate ability to be the No1 tennis or other kind of player. We need to practice and we need to train for a reason. The key of course is to find your training "reason".

As you know I bored you rigid with my training program when I was in the lead up to do the Perth City to Surf. I thought it would be harder than that, I was told the hills were killers - they may have been for the runners you understand, but for us "walkers" well not for me at any rate. In the end I didn't break any records, personal or otherwise because I ended up walking with 2 other people, one of which was my walking partner of course, the other was a work colleague of hers - who was a bit older than us, and I would say not quite as fit... Now, most people gave up training after the race had ended - including my walking partner... lazy muppet. But knowing I was going to be hiking in the Kalbarri gorges a few weeks later, meant I wasn't prepared to lose my ability to run up and down hills and not collapse in a heap at the top, so I carried on. We got back from that trip yesterday. As you know it was my birthday on Monday and therefore I am now into the planning of my "new" year, I use my birth day to decide my plans and goals for the next 12 months - well it is my new year after all. So I shall be finding another reason to "train" other than just for general health, fitness and a chance to look even better in clothes than I do already.

So what are your reasons to train? Once you find that out, you will never have motivational problems with exercise again.